This invention relates to protective gloves and more particularly to a protective glove adapted for use in skinning animals such as chickens.
In the poultry industry, birds are slaughtered and thereafter eviscerated. Ideally, to increase market value of the meat, the skin is carefully removed from the breast meat. In the process of skinning chickens, the hollow cavity of the bird is placed on a cone, which hangs on a rack of the moving production line. A cut then is made on the front of the bird near the top area under the wing to the bottom thigh area. A worker then reaches around from the back of the bird with two hands, inserts his fingers into the slit made by the cut, and pulls off the skin. To remove the skin, the worker must grip it very aggressively with a tight grip. This tight grip results in muscle strain from the finger muscles to the worker""s wrist area, and in particular the flexor retinaculum muscle. Increased tension on the flexor retinaculum compresses the carpal tunnel, the passage between the flexor retinaculum of the hand and the carpal bones, resulting in compression of median nerve within the carpal tunnel. After continued, repetitive skinning operations, carpal tunnel syndrome may result.
When the skinning operations are performed with bare hands, there is a risk of contaminating the product, cuts to the hands, and transmission of diseases to the worker. To overcome these risks, workers often wear protective gloves, such as cotton, latex, nitrile or metal mesh gloves. However, with continued skinning operations, these protective gloves become saturated or covered with fat, blood, tissue matter, and the like. As the glove becomes saturated, it becomes even more slippery. As a consequence, the worker must grip the skin even harder to remove it from the bird. The result is that there is even more strain on the muscles in the wrist area.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a protective glove for skinning animals.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which provides for a more efficient grip on the skin of an animal during skinning operations.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which allows for a more relaxed grip.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which reduces wrist strain.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which reduces strain on the flexor retinaculum.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which transfers muscle strain during skinning operations to the triceps, biceps and shoulder muscles.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a protective glove which reduces slippage of the glove even after repetitive skinning operations.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a glove which protects the users hands while skinning an animal.
This invention results from the realization that the aggressive tight grip required to achieve a firm hold on the skin of an animal to be skinned, the resulting strain on the muscles of the wrist and pressure on the carpal tunnel created by such a tight grip, and the tendency of the glove to become slippery after repetitive skinning operations associated with prior art protective gloves can be eliminated by adding teeth protruding from the fingers of the glove which efficiently grip the skin of the animal thus allowing a more relaxed grip during repetitive skinning operations and thereby reducing strain on the muscles of wrist area.
This invention features a protective animal skinning glove comprising a gripping member protruding from at least one of the fingers of the glove for gripping the skin of the animal. The gripping member is positioned along the length of the finger to reduce strain on the flexor retinaculum while gripping the skin of the animal thereby reducing pressure on the carpal tunnel.
In the preferred embodiment, the glove is made of metal mesh material. The gripping member may include a plurality of sets of teeth. Each set of teeth preferably is serrated. Each set of teeth may project from a member secured to the metal mesh finger by a fastener extending through the metal mesh material, each member including opposing walls having the serrations thereon. The gripping member may also be a metal hook, a single serration, or a protruding dimple. The glove is typically made of textile, latex, nitrile, metal mesh, or various combinations of textile, latex, nitrile, and metal mesh.
The index finger may include two gripping members both located on the middle joint of the index finger. One of the gripping members is on the side of the index finger and the other is positioned on the bottom of the index finger. The thumb may have a gripping member positioned on the bottom proximate the top joint thereof.